by Jerry eBooks
I smoothed the ten out and made like I was putting it back with the other lettuce. Suspenders straightened, an avaricious gleam in his face.
“Not so fast, friend. Mebbe I do know. Mebbe I’ve taken a couple of valises up there for her, now and then. Gimme!”
He stuck out his fin. I waited until he talked and handed the dough over.
“If it’s a phony number,” I warned, “I’ll come back with my guerrillas. We’ll hammer you down so short you’ll be able to hear the clocks in your socks tick.”
Another cab and a trip across town.
I relaxed against the worn upholstery, trying to figure it out. I couldn’t. It didn’t make much sense. The rich Mr. Gail leaded in his Dance’s living room. Cracky Morgan had doubtlessly taken care of the Kenny Stangl menace, but where the package Libby had taken care of fitted, and what was in it, was a puzzle you couldn’t do with a pencil.
After a while the cab slowed down. We were in an uptown neighborhood, close to Harlem and not too far from the end of the Park. Not a nice neighborhood like that which Armitage Arms reared in. This was cheap and tawdry, crowded and somewhat odoriferous.
“Here’s you are, Boss,” the hackie informed me, pulling up before a dirty brick building whose tenants went in for lace curtains and rubber-plants.
I paid the meter charge, added two bits for luck, and moved into the vestibule. Almost the first bell I gandered, above some tarnished mailboxes, bore a significant name:
Barron
I pressed the bell.
She opened the door and stood peering at me, lamplight behind her in a golden haze. Her eyes were a warm green jade, her hair was a smooth, taffy colored miracle of the hairdressing art. Her lips were like two red, ripe cherries and if it hadn’t been for a certain brittle quality in her oval face, she could have passed anywhere as an unsophisticated and charming schoolgirl.
But that look was the giveaway. “Miss Barron?” I began. “Or should I say Bowen?”
“You can say either, handsome.” The fruity mouth curved in a saucy smile. “What seems to be the trouble?”
“Plenty. Suppose I come in and talk about it.”
“I’d love you to.”
She opened the door wider. I walked in. It wasn’t anything like 12 D at the Armitage. The furniture was all right—substantial and oldfashioned—but the wallpaper needed a change, the fixtures were made to order for a junk dealer and the carpet, instead of being Oriental, had a Midwest accent.
She piloted me into a big room where a turned-down radio was busy with news reports. She snapped that off and smiled at me through the light of an opalescent-shaded lamp.
She was wearing a cute little draped rayon number that did things to her streamlined figure. In the light her skin was creamy satin, flawlessly perfect.
“I’m a friend of Libby Hart,” I began. She didn’t say anything and I kept going. “You gave Libby something to keep for you, in the safe at Flowerland.”
The green eyes lost their warm look. They darted to me and I saw her mouth begin to tighten.
“What about it?”
“You didn’t stop at the office there today? Pick the package up?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Why?”
I let it hang there and went off on another angle.
“Would you mind telling me what was in that package? Or is it too personal to talk about?”
She drew a quick little breath. “It—it’s a present Mr. Gail gave me, on my birthday. It’s worth a lot of cash. I happened to hear that an ex-gunny named Stangl was going to get it away from me.” She moved her shoulders casually. “If anyone thought I was going to stand by and let him grab he’s crazy.”
“But Stangl can’t grab. Didn’t you hear? The police found him this morning—shot up.”
“Honest?” She made it sound surprised enough, but I had a feeling it wasn’t any news flash. She kept on staring at me, before she said, “What did you come up here for?”
“Your package isn’t in the safe any more,” I told her.
That rang a bell. The hand she stretched for a cigarette stopped moving. Her head went back a few inches. The lids came down over her eyes and she seemed to freeze all over. At the same moment all the simple, naive veneer melted.
“What’s this—a transaction between you and your girl friend? I didn’t stop at Flowerland, and if that package is missing somebody’s going to be visited by a lot of grief! You might not know it, but I can manage just that!”
She stopped as the front doorbell rang. She dropped her cigarette in an ashtray and turned her back on me. A nice back, too.
Out in the hall I heard her talking to someone. Then heavy footsteps. Then a shadow across the floor.
I looked up and thought I was seeing things. Ziggy came into the room—all two hundred and forty pounds of him—black face, quartet of chins and jellylike paunch!
“Well, Johnny!” He sounded as surprised as I must have looked. “What are you doing here?”
I could have asked him the same question. I didn’t. Because the Bowen babe spoke her piece first.
“He says my package isn’t in the safe! That it’s gone!”
The gym owner dropped into a chair. A big chair, made to his measure. He mopped a slight dew of perspiration from his face, pushed dank hair back and scowled.
“Gone, eh? That’s funny. I thought you said the dame could be trusted.” He used a wrinkled handkerchief again. “Let that ride for a minute. I want to talk to Johnny. The kid’s a reporter. On the Orbit. He likes to mess around with crime stuff. He’s got teeth. Ask Mullin if you don’t believe me.”
CHAPTER V
Round and Black
I watched Ziggy. I had a lot of ideas, a lot of fancy notions. I let him do the talking. So did the star of “Lady in Love.”
“How are you doing on the Stangl bump, Johnny?” he asked. “Learned the why and wherefore yet? Let’s hear what you’ve dug. Maybe I can fill in the chinks.”
He grinned at the girl. I felt uncomfortable, suddenly nervous, and a little empty inside. It didn’t add up right. Nothing about it had any appeal—the whale in the chair, the beautiful blonde, the sad wallpaper, or the room that seemed to get smaller and smaller.
“It’s not hard to figure,” I said mechanically. “Gail gave Miss Bowen a present. Stangl wanted it. But he didn’t get it. He got some slugs instead.”
“Bright lad. Why?”
“That’s one of the chinks.”
Ziggy laughed. “Read it this way, Johnny. Gail gave the girl here the present because he thought she was all for him. He never dreamed she might like a big roughneck like me. When he did find out he got awful sore. He wanted the present back, on account of it being worth important coin.”
“Indian-giver!” Dance Bowen said in a harsh aside.
“Naturally, she wouldn’t consider that. So what does Gail do? He gets one of his old office boys and sicks him on her. Party named Stangl. But Kenny never gets to first base, no less a fingerhold on the package.”
Ziggy shook with inner laughter. Dance’s green eyes flashed. Oddly, I found I was perspiring, too.
“And Gail,” I heard myself saying, “got killed, too! Why?”
“Maybe because he was a little het up on account of Stangl,” the man in the chair chuckled. “Maybe he was threatening to crack down on Dance. You know how lugs are when they get sore and lose their tempers. They don’t know what they’re doing. Yeah, that’s the way it must have been. Howie Gail blew his top and got himself eradicated.”
“But in Miss Bowen’s apartment!” I protested.
Ziggy shrugged. “One place is as good as another. That’s the way it must have been.” He smiled blandly. “All on account of me, a fat boy without much education who stole Dance here right out of his favorite limousine. One for Winchell, Johnny. Right?”
“You didn’t pop Gail?” I told him. “Me? Heck, no. That’s out of my department.” He laughed again and turned to the girl. “Look, ho
ney. Bring me a drink and my kit.”
Dance went into the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator open and close. Then the gurgle of a bottle. Then the hiss of carbonated water.
She came back with an ice-filled glass and what looked like a shoe box. Ziggy balanced it on his knees. He had no lap. When he sat down that crawled up to his chest. He took a long cut at the glass, swallowing half of what was in it in one prodigious gulp.
After that he opened the box. He took out a .38 Smith and Wesson. He broke it at the breach, looked at the chambers, blew up the barrel. I noticed the gun had a reamed tip.
Ziggy reached in the box again. He took out a small cylinder about four and a half inches long. It was pock-marked with holes. Steel wool protruded from some of them. Ziggy fitted the cylinder over the end of the gun. He screwed it in place and looked at me.
“A silencer, Johnny. The kind used on fellas who know too much. Nosy fellas who stick their schnozzles into what don’t concern them. Like you, for instance.”
It was queer. I was sweating quarts, but felt as if I were packed in dry ice. I couldn’t move. It was like being nailed down. My shoes were full of iron weights and I couldn’t lift my arms. A sort of paralysis had crept over me.
But I could still talk, and did. “Wait a minute, Ziggy! Why knock me? After the nice piece I wrote about you tonight! What will murdering me get you? I’m no dick or private eye. Your affairs are none of my business.”
“You know too much. You’re not safe!”
I looked at Dance Bowen. She rested against a table. The ash on her cigarette was a gray curve. I wondered why it didn’t fall—the way I was soon to drop.
“Are you going to stand there and let him blast me?” I asked, almost indignantly. Or maybe it was hysterically.
The gorgeous shoulders moved in a shrug. “You can’t stop Zig, when he makes up his mind.” She didn’t smile or register any emotion. It was a plain statement of a plain fact. “He’s like that.”
The chill left me and fever set in. The burning heat of blood that lashed through me in pounding waves of fear. There was a cushion beside me. I kept worrying the fringe on it. I kept watching the fat man with the dark face, until I heard his gun click and saw the round O of the cylinder point in my direction.
And then the bell rang!
Ziggy ripped out a curse and spoke without turning his head.
“See who it is. Don’t let anybody in!”
I pegged the cushion at him as Dance Bowen started to leave the room. It was literally a soft touch. The down sailed through the air and spoiled Ziggy’s aim. The gun coughed like an asthma sufferer but its lead went wild.
I tangled the next instant.
It was like fighting with a feather bed. I buffed him in the face, missing his jaw, but reaching his cheek. My knuckles must have gone in an inch or two. No good. And he was trying to get the gun in firing level. I gave that my attention, making a frenzied grab for his pistol wrist before the hooded rod could cough a second time.
The chair went over and so did we. I landed on top. Ziggy was a dictator when upright. On his back he was only a porpoise, out of salt water and gasping for air. I almost had the gun when a foot banged against my wrist and almost broke it.
“Leave him alone, pal!” The voice was familiar. “I’ll take care of this sick moose!”
I rolled off Ziggy. In the lamplight Cracky Morgan, gun in hand, was covering the man on the floor!
Dance Bowen crouched near a table. Her green eyes were wide and full of fire but she just crouched there. Morgan kicked the fat man in the ribs and picked up the .38. He grinned.
“A muffler.” He looked at the silencer before he shoved the gun in his pocket. “I used ’em once—until I saw one kick back on a buddy and almost blow his fingers off. Get up, Ziggy. You know why I’m here. That was my stuff in the first place—what Gail robbed me of and sent Kenny out to gather after he’d given it to the girl! I’ve come for it, and I want it!”
Ziggy climbed to his feet. He was shaken, but he wasn’t through. He licked his lips and pressed a finger over the place on his face where I’d knuckled him.
“Okay, Cracky,” he mumbled. “Okay, boy. You don’t have to kick my ribs in to get it. It’s right here. I didn’t know it was yours in the first place.”
He began to open a drawer in the table close to where Dance stood. It was done so smoothly I didn’t have a chance to speak. I didn’t have a chance to do anything but look.
The drawer came open and the gun Ziggy snatched began to belch bullets. Morgan ducked and used his own rod. There must have been at least a half-dozen shots exchanged. The room was full of whizzing lead. The girl with the green eyes dropped to the floor and crawled for the couch.
I met her behind it and we drew in there while the guns roared.
Ziggy went out first.
He screamed and grabbed for his throat. His hand moved away, red and sticky. He looked at it, amazed. Just one look, because the next second he began to buckle at the knees and go down. It was like the fall of a building in slow motion.
Fascinated, I saw the gym owner thump on the floor and almost bounce when he hit it. Then I looked in Cracky Morgan’s direction. He was all through, too. He was up against the surbase, threshing around and clawing at the wallpaper.
Another spasm or two and he relaxed and rolled over on his face.
I was shaking like a line of wash when I crawled out from behind the sofa. I remember I had a hand around Dance’s arm and it was like cool velvet.
Just about then, through the confusion of police whistles screeching from open windows, the front door of the apartment was kicked open and Larry Hartley with the cop from the corner clumped in, guns drawn.
“Believe it or not,” I said to Hartley, “I’m glad to see you. I’ve got a present for you—the party who twenty-twoed Howard Gail at the Armitage Arms. She’s yours—take her and keep her!”
The funny thing was that Dance Bowen—or Olga Barron—only smiled when Hartley reached for her.
Next morning I sat in one of the comfortable chairs in Libby’s office at Flowerland and thought what a swell place the world was.
“So Dance made a complete confession,” Mrs. Hart’s only child stated, looking up from the Orbit and Bill Jamison’s able handling of the fracas on the fringe of Harlem. “She killed Gail because he threatened to close her show, throw her out and show her up for what she was. ‘Is’, might be a better word. But, you, Johnny. How did you know?”
“I’ve got a memory like a money lender,” I said, as I leaned back in the chair and admired the way the sun gilded her black hair. “When you said ‘Olga Barron’ you set off a spark. Some years past. Chicago. When I was covering the White Sox. A lady by that name had been mixed up in a shooting brawl, Let off. Not enough evidence. Same old story.”
“But—”
“The morgue at the office came up with the full particulars. She was Olga Barron then. Had a night-club act. Fancy shooting. With a target, twenty-two gun. Made a specialty of clipping the spots out of cards and stuff like that. Why couldn’t she pierce a jugular vein, if necessary? Catch?”
Libby smiled. It had all the sunshine of the universe in it and it did things to my heart and imagination.
“But what about the package? Johnny, I simply can’t figure what became of it!”
“Good morning,” said a voice from the doorway. In came Hilda, the demon typist of middle Manhattan. In addition to being dumb she was tired. She yawned a couple of times while she hung up her hat, fluffed out some near-blond hair and opened her handbag.
“You’re fifteen minutes late,” Libby informed her.
“Yeah. I know. Ma had to drag me off the sheets. No more parties in the middle of the week. They’re turrible . . . By the way, Miss Hart. I made a mistake yesterday. I took your package out of the safe instead of mine. Mine, with the six bucks worth of costume jewelry, I was supposed to wear last night.”
She handed over a small, brown paper-wrappe
d box.
“Give!” I said.
Libby slapped my hand and opened it herself. In a nest of cotton twenty-six gleaming black pearls were strung together on platinum wire, with a diamond catch.
“Pearls!” Libby breathed.
“Cracky lifted them somewhere,” I said. “Gail bought them, but never paid Morgan for them. Bad business, making a purchase and forgetting to settle. Get your hat, honey. We’ll take these down to Captain Mullin, before anybody else gets ideas.”
Libby nodded. “What a pleasure,” she said softly, “to go out with you, Johnny, unfollowed!”
THE HIGH-POWERED CORPSE
E.C. Marshall
Chinatown kept the mystery of that safe-blowing gang hidden from all save Detective Tom Ching who knew an explosive secret himself.
DETECTIVE TOM CHING of the Chinatown Squad loitered only for a practiced instant on the crooked curbstone of Doyers Street in New York’s Chinatown before passing out of the shadow of the high old tenements, into the sunlight and up the next sidewalk.
He did not hesitate as he chose a door from the many that crowded the narrow thoroughfare and pressed it inward.
The shop—an exact duplicate in merchandise and furnishings of a hundred other gift stores in Chinatown—was silent and cool. Its windows were dusty and filled with gimcrack statues of ancient Chinese gods and goddesses leering their long-dead smiles at the passersby. But behind the rear door a chime bell tinkled and a Chinese mandolin twanged awkwardly.
It was the hour of rest. Thin streams of incense filled the air. Not the nickel-and-dime olfactory horrors, but real temple powders of Oriental flowers. For an instant, Tom Chang resisted, then his Americanized face softened into grave lines of inward Chinese calm.
He was not to be uninterrupted, for he had violated the sign hanging on the outside door and written in both Chinese and English, reminding the buyer that for the noon hour the store was closed. With a clash of glass-bead drapes, a tall, thin figure clad in an ordinary business suit emerged from behind the rear counter followed by a small Chinese girl carrying a mandolin.